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In today’s second race of the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals we’re looking for Luna Rossa Challenge to become more reliable and for Artemis Racing to close the gap even further.

Luna Rossa took a 1-0 lead yesterday in the best-of-seven series with a 2-minute victory. But the Italian team continued to suffer the reliability bug. Before the start of the race the plastic film on its wing began peeling off the frames to which it is glued.

In the semifinals the team is using its first wing sail and helmsman Chris Draper said that it might’ve been sitting for too long.

“Maybe the glue has deteriorated because it’s sat there for awhile. We don’t have a lot of people and have been working hard to make Wing 2 ready, maybe we neglected that a bit. It’s a fine case of finding the balance. When life doesn’t go your way you end up in those situations. We’ll give it all our attention,” Draper said.

After yesterday’s race, Artemis Racing skipper Iain Percy might’ve been the happiest man on planet earth. He’s been bearing the heavy weight of the loss of his close friend, Andrew Simpson, but yesterday afternoon he was buoyant and joking about helmsman Nathan Outteridge breaking the swearing rules of the 34th America’s Cup.

“It was such a nice feeling because it’s hard for people outside our team to understand how big a feat it was what we achieved,” Percy said. “It was fantastic to lead at Mark 1 in our first race. After what we’ve been through it was a real boost. We were loving being out there and the support from the crowd when we crossed the line. I think they felt, as we did, what an achievement it was.”

For Artemis Racing to continue closing the gap it will need to improve its downwind speed. The team lost a lot of distance yesterday on the runs because it couldn’t stay on its hydrofoils through jibes. Falling off the foils means a great loss of speed and significant boost to your competitor.

“As we knew the difference is downspeed downwind and in maneuvers,” said Percy. “When we’re up and running and trucking I think we’re fine.”